Voters in St. Louis County will get the chance to decide in November on a measure that was designed to block county funding for the new stadium being built downtown for the St. Louis Cardinals. But would it?

The county Board of Election Commissioners certified on Wednesday the validity of signatures turned in by stadium opponents, guaranteeing that a charter amendment will appear on the ballot. The measure would prevent the county from spending any public money on a professional sports stadium.

The proposed amendment casts a shadow over the county's ability to pay off $46 million in bonds it sold in December to help pay for the stadium.

Lawyers for the county have advised that they don't think the amendment, even if passed, will affect the payments. But Fred Lindecke, a former Post-Dispatch reporter who led the drive to get the measure on the ballot, said that if it passes, the county will be unable to pay principal and interest on the bonds without first getting approval from voters.

Lindecke said if voters approve the measure, they will save $110 million - the total the county will pay for the bonds' principal and interest. That money "can be spent on legitimate public services, instead of being wasted on subsidizing the millionaire owners of the Cardinals," he said.

County officials were girding themselves Wednesday for a campaign to justify the unanimous council decision to issue the bonds.

"We will try to make voters aware of what we did and why we did it," said council Chairman Skip Mange, R-Town and Country. "The county cannot isolate itself from the interests of the city and the county."

Mac Scott, a spokesman for County Executive Charlie A. Dooley, said he believes the majority of county voters approved of spending public money on the stadium. But if the measure passes, he said, the fight will have just begun.

"History would indicate that on issues like this, that are fraught with this many twists and turns, it will probably come down to a court ruling," Scott said.

Mange said he had been repeatedly assured by county lawyers, as well as bond and tax attorneys, that if the amendment is approved, it will affect public funding of future stadiums but not of the Cardinals' stadium.

The prospectus that accompanied the bonds said "the determination of the legal impact of such charter amendment may have to be made by the courts in litigation. . . . The outcome of any such litigation cannot be predicted with certainty."

Mange noted that the money to repay the bonds is coming from a tax collected only from guests of hotels and motels. Voters approved that tax in 1990.

Reporter Martin Van Der Werf
E-mail: mvanderwerf@post-dispatch.com
Phone: 314-727-6234